Biennial Spofford Family Vacation, June 2012

This year was another year for a Spofford Family Vacation. I haven't been part of the family long enough to know when they started or how long they've been going on, but this is the 3rd I've been on, and I love each one more than the time before. 

Beginning this year, we've changed a few things about how they work. Specifically, they will now be every-other year (biennial) on the even years (2012, 2014, etc) and the families will take turns planning the vacation while the rest of the family merely shows up. We identified last time that each of the 6 adults have different preferences/tastes when it comes to vacations and the Planning Family is to take those things into account as much as possible, but this delegation saves hours of time spent by everyone and hundreds of Reply-to-All emails. 

This time it was Seth and I's job to plan the vacation. I did the searching for a place to stay and he came up with the itinerary. Overall, we prefer to stay in a house together as it tends to be cheaper and better allows for mingling/hanging out time during the day and especially once the kids are asleep. After seeing a friend's pictures from a Hot Springs family vacation, I began my search there (one of the adults' requirements is to not travel in the car more than about 4 hours). 

I found this house and LOVED it from the beginning. Once the price was agreed upon by everyone, our destination was set. It was four bedrooms (three bathrooms), three of which had at least a queen or larger bed, one came with a walk-in closet (where we prefer to stick Austin) and two had their own bathroom. It had a large kitchen and a big table where we could play games and eat family meals. Additionally, the family room was big enough and had enough seating that no adult had to sit on the floor while we were all gathered. (You can probably tell some of the things we've found lacking in other housing arrangements.) It was about 15 minutes from town, had a good-sized back yard, AND IT WAS ON A LAKE!

The front of the house.

The back of the house.

Austin in the back of Nonnie & Gramps' van on the ride up to Hot Springs... He rode back there amongst luggage like a king among his subjects. :-) He did a GREAT job on both legs of the trip, though he didn't sleep very much either direction. But when he wasn't sleeping, he was chatting and smiling.

On the first morning of vacation (which occurred too early for my liking--our room didn't have very good blinds, and the sun was beating on my face by 6am), I found my husband fishing on the dock in the morning quietness. I sat and read a book while he fished. It. Was. Awesome. ... The PERFECT way to begin a vacation.

The first full day was Boat Day. We rented a pontoon and spent time going around the lake and finding spots to swim from. That night for dinner, we took the boat to a restaurant (Fisherman's Warf) to eat. There was a longer wait than we anticipated, so Seth was driving us home past sunset, speeding along as quickly as possible. We found the house without incident, but everyone was too tired to do much once we were back.

Who thought he was driving us to dinner.

Who actually drove us to dinner.

The whole crew (minus me since I'm taking the picture), heading to dinner.

This isn't that great of a photo, but I love Austin and Gramps' hair too much not to post it!

It's things like the following three pictures that make me LOVE Spofford Family Vacations so much. 

1) Gramps got to sit long enough with Austin to teach him how to blow bubbles! He ate quite a bit of soap in the process (he preferred his lips touching the wand), and did a lot of spitting up over the next few hours, but it's moments like this that, to me, are priceless.

2) Soon Gramps was surrounded by bubble-blowing enthusiasts! (One of whom is still wearing her pjs!)

3) Uncle and Nephew getting a chance to connect. About something not involving present-opening, meal eating/preparations, schedule-ness, etc. Just two guys sitting on a dock talking. Love it!

Later that next morning, after we'd returned the boat, we held the 1st-Ever Spofford Family Vacation Games. There were 7 different types of games, all but the last one worth 25 points. Every team member had to participate, and the teams got to choose who would represent their team for each event. The games were: Egg Relay, Egg Toss, Dizzy Bat Race, 3-legged Race, Staring Contest, Rock/Paper/Scissors Tourney, and the tie-breaker was a Name That Tune contest. We spent time getting all sweaty in the humid air outside (it was very humid that morning) and then came inside to the AC to finish with the tie-breaker. Each member of the winning team received a 100 Grand candy bar, which was chosen specifically because it denotes a cash prize, but comes in two pieces. Everyone got to eat some, thus declaring the whole family a winner! (After the games, the Mommies got cleaned up and headed out for their afternoon of fun sans kids. We got our toes done, went shopping, and went out to eat at J's Italian Villa which overlooks the lake. It was a really great time!)

The Blue Team: Seth, Cheryl, Nonnie, Turner, and Ireland (wearing Turner's clothes and thus looking a bit masculine).

It was a good thing I was taking this picture because even with Austin as a handicap, Spencer won the Egg Relay "by a spoon."

Austin HATED the 3-legged race, but Spencer was a good sport about carrying him the entire length of the course!

I LOVE the smiles in this one!

Austin kept getting into the egg container and breaking eggs all over the place!

The Daddy Brothers wanted to see how far they could get while tossing an egg. An unofficial event, they went as far as the yard would take them until it shattered upon Spencer's final catch. It was a serious egg explosion and I wish I'd gotten it on camera.

Blue Team with the R/P/S tourney...

Red Team with the R/P/S tourney...

Brother/Sister "won" and played in the final bracket.

Everyone was a winner! (Delaney's showing off the last bits of the prize.)

The second-to-last night (post the Mommy Afternoon), myself and my MIL both got some sort of food poisoning and were up all night, in our respective bathrooms. So the last full day, I spent sleeping the day away on the couch, watching bad tv because I hadn't realized we had HGTV! sigh. Anyways, as a result, I kinda stopped with the picture taking, so I'm missing the middle of the vacation. Anyways, here are a few from the morning we left-- Austin and Seth taking in the last bits of the lake.

He wasn't as unhappy as he appears. He just didn't want to smile. But there's something about the look on his face here that draws me in... I can't put my finger on what it is.

I just love the coloring in this one.

And then we were packed up and ready to go home. 

Everyone just before loading. Nonnie was still in bed with a migraine, though.

Our last day of vacation was Father's Day and all the Daddy's happened to be wearing navy blue. I HAD to get a picture. (Seth and Spencer look more alike, to me, in this picture than any I've ever seen before.)

A few random shots of the scenic 5-hour drive...

Maybe it's because I "watched" Ghostbusters 1 & 2 while sleeping on the couch the day after food poisoning, but does anyone else see the Stay Puff guy in the clouds behind the flags!?